Detailed Summary of Journey to the center of the Earth

Journey to the center of the Earth, an update of Jules Verne’s classic novel uses the 1864 tale as a template. The movie opens to its hero, scientist Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser), waking up from a nightmare. Anderson teaches earth sciences at the university and heads the Center of Volcanic Activity. Max, also a volcanic scientist, built the monitoring system and placed the units around the world 10 years earlier. For some strange reason, Max did not return, leaving behind a wife and son, Sean (Josh Hutcherson). Trevor has not been able to come to terms with the disappearance of his brother. While on work, he finds out that his brother’s lab is being closed down owing to the paucity of funds. It saddens him considerably.

Once he reaches home, he receives a number of messages left by his sister-in-law on his answering machine regarding his nephew Sean’s (Josh Hutcherson) ten day long stay with him. He had completely forgotten about it and looks around the mess in his house with horror. As he rushes about trying to straighten things up a bit, Sean arrives with his mother. In the absence of his father, Sean’s mother wants him to spend some quality time with his uncle. She also leaves Trevor with a box of things belonging to Max, Sean’s father and Trevor’s brother.

Once left alone after his mother’s departure, Sean starts taking interest in what Trevor has to say about his father whom he never had a chance to know. Max had disappeared when Sean had not turned three yet. Trevor finds an old baseball glove and a yo-yo inside the box and shows Sean how to operate that quaint yo-yo. He also finds a copy of Jules Verne’s novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. He finds hand written notes and a secret code written by his brother inside the novel very intriguing. He goes to his lab to check out those notes. At the monitoring center, Trevor compares the volcanic activity numbers and finds that they are exactly the same as the ones in the book and becomes even more excited. Finally, he decides to go to Iceland to investigate for himself. He intends to send Sean back to his mother but Sean pleads with him to let him also tag along. After initial protests, Trevor relents.

After a long flight and a tiring drive, they try to locate another volcanologist to help them in their quest. When they, finally, reach that scientist’s institution, they meet a woman named Hannah (Anita Briem) who tells them that she is the daughter of the scientist they are looking for. Her father is no more and there is no institution. She invites them inside and when they look up her father’s copy of ‘Journey to the center of the Earth’ they find similar notes as Max’s notes. She then explains that a certain group of scientists called Vernians believe that the wonders described in the novels of Jules Verne are actually facts. She suggests that Max could be one such scientist. Hannah offers to work as a guide to help them climb up to the instrument that had all of a sudden started sending data again. She makes it clear from the very beginning that she would charge him by hour for her services.

They start climbing next morning and reach the instrument, but a lightening storm forces them to take shelter in a cave. The instrument gets destroyed and the entrance of the cave collapses, blocking their exit. Struck inside the cave with no hope of help, they decide to explore the cave expecting to find an alternate exit. They stray into an abandoned mine and Trevor saves Hannah’s life. While searching for a way out, they reach a wall studded with large diamonds. Sean gets very excited and collects a few. But soon they realize that the floor they are standing is too fragile to support their weight. Despite their best effort to back down slowly, it gives away under them and they start falling down a volcano tube. They keep falling for miles and miles until they reach the center of the earth.

At the end of their fall they plunge into an underground river. When Hannah does not reach the surface, Trevor jumps into the river again to find her and brings her to the shore safely. As they lie on the rocks, resting, they notice a number of glowing objects at the ceiling of the cave. They wonder if it is sky and they are looking at stars until it they realize that they are actually looking at the prehistoric glow birds, mentioned in Verne’s books. They continue their journey in the center of the earth and come across many objects described in the book like giant fungi, until they reach a cave dwelling where Max had lived. They find many objects belonging to him including Max’s old journal. While Sean and Trevor poured over Max’s journal, Hannah goes out to explore the surroundings and discover the remains of Max. She calls Trevor and together they bury him. Later, Trevor reads a message from Max’s journal which he had written on Sean’s third birthday (8-14-97) expressing his love for his family and his desire to be reunited with them.

One heartening thing that they realize is that they are seeing the same things that were printed in the Jules Verne book. This gives them hope that some one who had witnessed the world in the center of the earth managed to escape and reach the surface. Trevor continues to read Max’s journal and realizes that they need to leave quickly as the temperature is rising steadily. Trevor figures out that they must find a geyser to propel them to the surface. They must do it within 48 hours otherwise all the water needed to produce a geyser would be drained. He also figures out that they must leave before temperature rises past 135 degrees. To reach the geyser, they have to cross the underground ocean.

They make a crude raft with a sail and start across the ocean. A little glow bird follows them, hovering over their raft. Suddenly, they are attacked by flying piranhas. All three of them arm themselves with sticks and start hitting them back into water. Soon, their raft is surrounded by the dinosaurs that start eating flying piranhas. Hannah injures her hands and wrists fighting ferocious piranhas. While Trevor is tending to her, the stalk supporting the sail breaks. Sean grabs the sail but the wind is so strong that he is blown away along with the sail.

Sean regains consciousness and finds himself at the shore. He tries drinking water collected in puddles but spits it out for its too saline to be potable. He looks up to find a glow bird hovering around him. It guides him to a spring of clean water. It then leads him on and soon, Sean reaches a place with zero gravity. He observes rocks suspended in the air. He must cross over to the other end to reach the geyser. He jumps from one rock to the other as they float in the air. Finally, he reaches to the other side and continues his journey. On the other hand, Trevor and Hannah also reach the other shore of the ocean and search for Sean. As they sit down to rest they are attacked by the carnivorous plants. Trevor fights them off and saves Hannah from being choked by their stems. They move ahead but Trevor refuses to leave without Sean. He asks Hannah to wait for him at the river while he goes in search of Sean calling out his name aloud.

Meanwhile, Sean reaches a spot littered with bones of prehistoric animals. Suddenly, the ground start shaking and he runs to take shelter behind some rocks. He looks around for the cause of this disturbance but could not find anything. All of a sudden, a blob of mucus falls on him. Instinctively, he looks up to find a T-Rex staring down at him. Before T-Rex has a chance to bite his head off, Sean runs for his life with dinosaur in pursuit. Sean jumps into a cave which is too small for T-Rex to enter. But the dinosaur refuses to give up and keeps pushing his mouth in the cave for the boy. Trevor hears Sean’s cries for help and busts the wall of the cave from the other side and pulls Sean out of it.

As they proceed, they find Hannah in a boat that she has made out of the jaw of an archaic animal. They all get into it and move toward the geyser. When they reach there, the geyser is all dried up with all the water on the other side of the wall. The volcano tube they are sitting atop starts filling with molten lava. Trevor uses a flare to ignite the magnesium in the wall. After two failed attempts, he succeeds in his third attempt and causes a geyser to shoot them through Mount Vesuvius in Italy. They slide through the vineyard of an Italian farmer who is shocked to see the damage they cause. To compensate for the loss, Sean offers him a huge diamond that he had plucked out of the wall of the cave. Trevor then opens the bag to find many more diamonds in it. He decides to use the money from the diamonds to retain his brother’s laboratory. Trevor and Hannah come closer to each other in the course of adventure and at the end share a kiss.

The film ends on the final day of Sean’s visit with Trevor and Hannah who has moved in with him in a new house purchased with the money from the sale of diamonds. Trevor gives a book to Sean titled “The Lost City of Atlantis” and suggests that perhaps they could spend some time together during Sean’s Christmas break, alluding to a possible sequel.

Journey to the center of the earth - Movie Trailer

Trailer 1

An exciting adventure based on the classic Jules Verne novel “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Journey to the Center of the Earth stars Brendan Fraser (Crash, The Mummy) as a science professor whose untraditional hypotheses have made him the laughing stock of the academic community. But on an expedition in Iceland, he and his nephew stumble upon a major discovery that launches them on a thrilling journey deep beneath the Earth’s surface, where they travel through never-before-seen worlds and encounter a variety of unusual creatures. Journey to the Center of the Earth is directed by Academy Award-winning visual effects veteran Eric Brevig (Total Recall, Pearl Harbor) from a screenplay by Michael Weiss and Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin.

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Trailer 2

Earth’s surface, where they travel through never-before-seen worlds and encounter a variety of unusual creatures. Journey to the Center of the Earth is directed by Academy Award-winning visual effects veteran Eric Brevig (Total Recall, Pearl Harbor) from a screenplay by Michael Weiss and Jennifer Flackett & Mark Levin.

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Trailer 3

Journey to the center of the earth

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Trailer 4

An all-new JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH.

World Premiere